OK the banks screwed a lot of people but

Senna

Senna wrote: »

Why didn't you change from them in the 3 decades that they were mischarging your accounts?

There is/was no shortage of banks and most were giving incentives to change. There is not much point complaining on here after the fact, while during your time with UB you knew they were making mistakes.

I'm quite a loyal person. I always believed that if I stayed in Ulster Bank I would receive better treatment than if i went elsewhere. My BOI mortgage account has occasional bank clerical mistakes aswell.

Every bank makes "mistakes" on your bank account. Previously I was able to check my bank accounts statements and it wasn't that much of a problem since i could pull them up on mistakes immediately. The difficulty really increased once i left the country, which shouldn't have been the case.

P. Breathnach

DARKIZE wrote: »

... you can't absolve people entirely of responsibility for their own financial affairs.

Not entirely, I agree.

But, m'lud, there are extenuating circumstances. My client, Joe Public, was getting along with his life, working and making a reasonable living. The house that he had bought fifteen years ago for IR£45,000 was, people said, now worth €350,000. Everybody (media, politicians, neighbours, his cousins in Birmingham) told him he was rich. He didn't see it, but then the financial institutions also told him he was rich. He still didn't see it, so they sent out consultants and financial advisors to visit him, young men and women in sharp suits driving Audis or BMWs who understood the arcane world of finance and offered to pilot him through it. The garage conversion and kitchen extension happened, and the price of a nice-looking 4x4 was bundled into the 15-year financing arrangement. Now Joe started to feel a bit rich. So when more nice young people in suits told him about overseas property, and introduced ideas like equity release, he listened. These people, after all, were the richness experts, and they had brought him into their world of wealth. So the apartment in Bulgaria was bought off plans, secured by a charge on the family home in the Dublin suburbs. Now he was really rich, flying high with the rest of them -- all based on his job in SR Technics.

DARKIZE

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Not entirely, I agree.

But, m'lud, there are extenuating circumstances. My client, Joe Public, was getting along with his life, working and making a reasonable living. The house that he had bought fifteen years ago for IR£45,000 was, people said, now worth €350,000. Everybody (media, politicians, neighbours, his cousins in Birmingham) told him he was rich. He didn't see it, but then the financial institutions also told him he was rich. He still didn't see it, so they sent out consultants and financial advisors to visit him, young men and women in sharp suits driving Audis or BMWs who understood the arcane world of finance and offered to pilot him through it. The garage conversion and kitchen extension happened, and the price of a nice-looking 4x4 was bundled into the 15-year financing arrangement. Now Joe started to feel a bit rich. So when more nice young people in suits told him about overseas property, and introduced ideas like equity release, he listened. These people, after all, were the richness experts, and they had brought him into their world of wealth. So the apartment in Bulgaria was bought off plans, secured by a charge on the family home in the Dublin suburbs. Now he was really rich, flying high with the rest of them -- all based on his job in SR Technics.

You speak the truth PB. A work colleague of mine bought 2 appartments off the plans in Bulgaria, and when I asked him to point to Bulgaria on the atlas he couldn't do it. He took early retirement last year so hope he's not too badly burned, but it kind of shows you the crazy stuff that was going on, and if he came back to me now playing the poor mouth, it would be hard to have too much sympathy. There's a difference between being unlucky with your investment timing and downright recklessness.

Muggy Dev

This constant scapegoating of the banks is absurd.They gave the Irish public exactly what they craved,an endless line of cheap credit,and got rich behond their wildest dreams on the back of it.Now,some people want to throw these bankers in Jail? Are these people the enemies of the state? We´re they all bad? ...and where will we find the expertise to run our banking system now?

There is an upswelling of anger directed at the banks as though they and their unbridled avarice are the root cause of our problems now.This is convenient in many ways,not least of which is that it ignores the truth.The truth is that it was the avarice of the Irish people that has landed the country in the sorry state that it is in now.For sure,we were encouraged by government and facilitated by the banks but we paid ourselves too much and we borrowed way too much.

The longer we as a nation postpone coming to terms with the fact that we are all responsible for this crisis,the further away and more elusive the solutions will be.

thebman

Muggy Dev wrote: »

This constant scapegoating of the banks is absurd.They gave the Irish public exactly what they craved,an endless line of cheap credit,and got rich behond their wildest dreams on the back of it.Now,some people want to throw these bankers in Jail? Are these people the enemies of the state? We´re they all bad? ...and where will we find the expertise to run our banking system now?

I think you'll find that isn't what the Irish people wanted. What they wanted was a house, they just had to take a huge debt to buy it because banks gave massive loans forcing prices artificially up knowing that in the future people wouldn't be able to pay these loans.

There is an upswelling of anger directed at the banks as though they and their unbridled avarice are the root cause of our problems now.This is convenient in many ways,not least of which is that it ignores the truth.The truth is that it was the avarice of the Irish people that has landed the country in the sorry state that it is in now.For sure,we were encouraged by government and facilitated by the banks but we paid ourselves too much and we borrowed way too much.

The longer we as a nation postpone coming to terms with the fact that we are all responsible for this crisis,the further away and more elusive the solutions will be.

Its not just the Irish people, there are systems in place that should prevent stupid loans being given out. They failed spectacularly.

Oh and all that ignores that a lot of Irish people didn't get involved and saw it as a big bubble ready to burst and bankrupt us all. Unfortunately, we still have to suffer because of the fools

molloyjh

thebman wrote: »

I think you'll find that isn't what the Irish people wanted. What they wanted was a house, they just had to take a huge debt to buy it because banks gave massive loans forcing prices artificially up knowing that in the future people wouldn't be able to pay these loans.

WOW, there's some serious over-simplification for you! You do realise this whole problem was a bit chicken and egg right!? That be banks would not have had to lend such large amounts and set such low rates if the houses didn't cost as much yeah!? And that the ECB rate also contributed to the low rates over the last number of years. And Governmental policy on the matter did nothing but help to drive prices up. Investors took a strong hold of the market and helped drive prices up as well as the fact that the current generation of new home owners were born during a bit of a baby boom. The large demand itself helped to drive prices up meaning that increased loans were required and lower rates were needed to make these viable. The banks pushed for it to happen and the Central Bank here gave them the green light.

There are a lot of responsible parties. It wasn't just the banks. Over-simplification like this is what is causing so much tension and division in the country right now, especially since it is creating a sort of hysteria that the FF'ers are latching onto in an attempt to avoid the hard work of making the right changes where it will really count in the long term and seeming to be "listening" to the people instead. Its that sort of short term view that landed us in this mess in the first place.

thebman wrote: »

Oh and all that ignores that a lot of Irish people didn't get involved and saw it as a big bubble ready to burst and bankrupt us all. Unfortunately, we still have to suffer because of the fools

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but trust me we bought into the property boom and the cheap credit deal in a big way. If we hadn't it wouldn't have been much of a boom and the banks would not have been making the profits they have been. If we weren't availing of the low rates they wouldn't have remained low.